Nissan Ariya

It looks good, right? I’d argue the coupe-SUV aesthetic doesn’t really work in most cases. But there’s something about the Nissan Ariya’s smoothly appointed creases – ‘Japanese futurism’, in design lingo – that’s improbably arresting in the metal. Given the rate of knots at which electric crossovers are being launched, catching the eye will undoubtedly prove to be a good thing.

As will Nissan’s legacy. With the Leaf, it launched the world's first mass-production electric car, and more than half a million have sold globally since. That ought to be an automatic leg-up to make buyers pay the Ariya some credence, even if it does feel a touch late to the plug-in SUV party.

The numbers it launches with are impressive, though. You have a choice of front- or all-wheel drive and two different battery sizes, resulting in four different power outputs, ranging from 160kW to 290kW. The top-rung Ariya e-4ORCE Performance hits 100km/h in a mite over five seconds, while the most efficient will nudge 500km of range on a full charge.

Lots of choice, then, but our first taste of a pre-production car is the cheapest and slowest.

In the UK it’s priced from £41,845, the equivalent of around AU$75,000 and over 50 per cent costlier than a base Nissan Leaf. It’s moving the electric Nissan experience up, and not just in terms of size.

That's because my first impression (beyond being oddly enamoured by the looks) is how special it manages to feel inside, even if half a dozen laps driving this prototype Ariya around a former F1 race circuit isn’t exactly the most opportune time to soak up its ambience and prod and poke every panel and material.

The CMF-EV platform it’s based upon allows for a nice flat floor and a sliding centre console that swishes fore and aft depending on how much you value the leg space of your rear passengers. It’s among a wealth of neat interior tricks; another sees the drive mode and climate control buttons melded into the dashboard trim to blend physical and digital operation. The end result looks neat and is still quite reassuring to operate.

“We did not go for fully digital controls because we wanted to make interaction in the car easy, simple and effortless,” says product manager Alexander Pasternak.

“For the same reason, we chose horizontal displays with a central screen that’s easy to reach.”

Is that an only mildly guarded dig at Tesla? Either way, those displays also contain reams of driver-assist functions, a voice assistant that’ll link up to connected devices in your home and a smart nav system that’ll check the status of charging stations on your route and update things accordingly if they’re full. Or broken. Naturally, the car is open to over-the-air refreshes, too.

The Japanese buzzwords are in full flow if you’re willing to listen to Nissan’s spiel – ‘Andon’ interior lighting is inspired by paper lanterns, while the ‘Kumiko’ door trim references ancient wood construction methods. But I’m inclined to let them get away with it all because the ambience in here is top-notch.

Is the drive as good though? Well, a layer of Saharan dust whipped in by a Spanish sandstorm lends Circuito del Jarama a slight slipperiness that is actually quite welcome in such a short stint in the car, exaggerating its dynamic behaviours like a diet version of the riotous frozen lake testing facilities around the Arctic Circle. But it ultimately doesn’t provide the final assessment an exhaustive road test will serve up.

What I conclude for now is that the Ariya handles really quite pertly given its circa two-tonne weight. Which is all the more impressive given we’re dealing with the base FWD version here, not the glamorous performance halo.

You have a bunch of drive modes to choose from as well as different levels of brake regen and the option of one-pedal operation, but it’s pretty smart whichever selections you’ve haptically prodded yourself into.

Beyond the light and lifeless but sharply reacting steering is a neat handling balance and nice linear acceleration – claiming 7.5sec to hit 100km/h, this Ariya possesses no pointlessly quick off the line tricks. Its power is instead delivered in the mid-range, right where you actually want it. And the strength of the e-pedal regen proves a neat way to shift the car’s weight forwards when tucking its nose into corners.

It feels like it could be a real tyke with more performance tuning, or simply an ‘ESC off’ button. Get on the power as early as you think you can and the electronics unsubtly lunge in and curb your flow, which feels overzealous, but I suspect that away from a curiously dusty circuit, traction will be somewhat more predictable.

Thankfully Jarama’s long straight provides a fine place to check out the Ariya’s 120km/h cruising, which is quiet and exceedingly fuss-free.

There’s a slight rustle around the wing mirrors but – as with all EVs – it’s only truly noticeable because everything else is so hushed.

Higher power outputs will get Nissan’s new torque-vectoring AWD, clunkily named e-4ORCE.

The idea is that it not only tidies up the handling, carefully metering out power at all four corners, but it calms down the pitching motion that comes from braking or lifting off the throttle, regardless of how fun that has made this FWD Ariya on the irrelevance of a racetrack.

A quick go around some cones in a Leaf e-4ORCE test mule (dubbed ‘Super Leaf’ by its engineering team) suggest it'll lend the Ariya more inherent stability and smoother straight-line manners.

Nissan argues it brings GT-R heritage further down the range. Which might seem a bit idealistic, but who wouldn’t pick the low-hanging fruit of a supercar-slayer on the family tree? The tech should sit neatly beneath that airy and appealing cabin to make something that tries sufficiently different stuff to feel like a whole new chapter for Nissan.

Let’s hope the Ariya lives up to its impressive first impression once we try one on the road.

2022 Nissan Ariya specifications